November 15, 2012 AT 7:00 am

How To Start A Hackerspace: Part 4 – Get It Done

When you made lists of what tools and physical resources your co-hackers will need and how that impacts your space, you were probably already figuring out where you could get these things, and who can make them happen. Now it’s time to actually assign who can – and will – do what, where you’ll find what you need, and who is going to be in charge of (and drop-dead responsible for) getting it done.

Before you go any further you need to make a solid decision about how things get decided by you and your Hackerspace co-founders from now on.

There are a couple of different ways you can organize your decision making structure in all of this. You can have a Primary (final decision maker), an openvote-style democratic structure (decisions are vote by majority, implemented by a manager), a Board of Directors (core members that make decisions, make policies), or you can take a look at other collective organizational structures online.

Formally decide who will be responsible for the space (lease, rental, owner); who will be responsible for your power, water, garbage and repairs; who will run membership and security (keys, alarms, opening and closing the space).

Get this stuff organized so you can get hacking: Make a check list of what needs to get done, like: